Hug!
by outerelf
Summary: Red Alert remembers the first time he met Inferno. In a combatant sparkling program.


"Red Alert?"

"Yes, What is it?"

"Do you remember the first time we met?" Inerno asked cheerfully.

Red Alert, to the surprise of all those gathered choked on his energon. Infernos grin turned to something of a smirk. "At least you stopped doing that whenever I greet you, right?"

"I said it was an accident! I didn't mean too!"

The party going on had been in its full-swing for several hours, and more then one mech had gotten tipsy. Only Prowl and Red Alert were left completely sober, but Red Alert, from the way he was acting, could well be considered tipsy.

Prowl, curious, stood up and walked over to Red Alert, ignoring Jazzs drunken wail. There was no one else left to talk to anyways. Most were too far gone into their own little worlds to notice the police crusier. "So, Red Alert, how did you meet Inferno?"

Red Alert stared at Prowl for a moment, and then turned back to the room. "Have you heard of the short-lived combat sparkling program?"

"Oh, when someone managed to convince parents into signing their sparklings or very young younglings into taking a combat course in the hopes of training them into soldiers."

"Yes. You remember how it was broken up, right?"

"Of course. The government got wind of it, and they broke it up, and wiped any record of it off of the childrens records. Why?"

"Well, Inferno and I met each other there."

The energon cube on the way up to Prowls mouth stopped in mid-air. And slowly it lowered. "You were _what_?"

"I met Inferno in that program." Red Alert said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "I lived on a seedier side of town right then, so my parents knew it was a good idea. Inferno however, was a late addition."

Prowl stared at Red Alert, re-evaluating what he knew of the security director. _He must be drunk to be saying this._ Red Alert swirled the cube, and then looked up at Prowl. "I'm not that drunk. It's just something that's always been embarrassing to me."

Inferno laughed at that. "Tell him Red. I want to see his face!"

"Inferno, if you even remember tonight other then one massive blur, I will be surprised." Red Alert growled.

"Then all the reason to tell it." Prowl reasoned. "No one else will know, and you can reasonably say that you already told all of them."

Red Alerts optics snapped back to Prowl, and Red Alert suddenly smirked. "True. Let's see, it started off when I was just a little sparkling…"

* * *

0o0o0o0o0o

The tiny sparkling glanced around the large room. The floor was hard metal, but every now and then there was a soft pad for where sparklings would be practicing tosses and such. Silently Red Alert pressed himself against the wall, not wanting to be caught up too badly on what was going on around him.

Nearly a hundred different sparklings and younglings stared around them, their childish exuberance making itself clear as they rushed about, chattering to each other. Red Alert clicked sotly, optics narrow as they traveled across the group of sparklings. Already he was slightly smaller then most. He was already at a disadvantage, and he knew it, even if he couldn't properly articulate it.

There was a loud amount of confusion as the mechs who were handing out energon goodies suddenly found themselves short.

Instantly the happy sparklings were growling and glaring at each other. Red Alert pressed himself against the wall, wishing that he could melt right into it. "Red Alert, aren't you going to try to get a goodies?" One of the instructors asked.

Red Alert shook his head. "Wait." He mumbled, eyeing the instructors mistrustfully. He knew _exactly_ what was going on here, his paranoia for once making itself useful as it claimed, _They'll turn you all against each other, until you all want to do nothing more then kill each other. You have to escape, run, run, run…_

Red Alert tensed even further as the instructor frowned. "Red Alert-"

Red Alert stubbornly kept his back to the wall, even as teachers tried to get him to join the fight. Red Alert clung to the wall, shrieking, "No!"

At last they gave up and encircled the main brawl, shouting tips to the combatants. The younglings, too young to listen, ignored them as they bit, clawed and pounded each other into submission. Instructors waded in, pulling out those who were unconscious, or those about to be truly killed. Otherwise, the younglings were on their own.

Red Alert watched them all, optics full of clawing fear. At any moment one could stagger towards him, and they could kill him. And they wouldn't care, either. They would kill him, and the instructors would congratulate them.

Needless to say, by the end of the day, Red Alerts paranoia had jacked up another two notches, and he didn't even hug his creators in fear of them offlining him.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Inferno glanced around the room in interest. His creators had brought him to the program a week late, so Inferno was a little worried about being ignored because the others had already made friends.

The fire trucks optics swept the crowd, and then he paused as his optics fell upon a small sparkling, standing miserably with his back to him, listening to a teacher berate him. "You're here to fight! Not be pressed up against the wall and _watch_ others fight!"

The red and white lambroghini looked down at the ground, shuffling his feet miserably. "Yessir."

The instructor stalked away, and the Lamborghini sighed miserably. Inferno looked at the sparkling sympathetically. And then brightened. _I know something that'll make him feel better!_

Without pausing to think it through, Inferno rushed the sparkling from behind, and hugged the smaller sparkling.

Who screeched, caught Inferno by one arm, smoothly _tossed_ the larger fire truck over one shoulder, and knocked the poor youngling unconscious.

0o0o0o0o0oo0

Red Alert stared in distinct shock at the fire truck, his body still trembling from the surprised force of the adrenaline, and the act that he now recognized what the fire truck had been trying to do to him. _He was trying to hug me and I just knocked him unconscious. Oh my, now he'll never want to talk to me again-_

"Good job Red Alert."

Red Alert looked up at the instructor with wide optics. _What?_

"Smoothly done. The way you tossed him over your shoulder was very smooth and proessional Red Alert. You did a good job. Have a goodie."

Red Alert numbly took the goodie. _I-I knock him out, a mech who just wanted to hug me, and I get a goodie?_

Red Alerts CPU was confused. He had done _something_ right, but he wasn't sure what. Silently he glanced down at the fire truck, and then he placed the goodie to one side to drag the unconscious youngling out of the way of the feet.

Then, he sat down to wait after retrieving his goodie. He toyed with it, staring at the unusual youngling who had just rushed him from nowhere. To give him a hug, which he repayed by knocking him unconscious-

The fire truck groaned and shifted slightly, and Red Alert flinched. Or a moment Red Alert wondered if he should scurry out of arms reach, but decided that if the other youngling wanted to give him a dent for what Red Alert did, it was the younglings right.

With a sigh he kept still, and the fire truck groaned as he sat up, and leaned against the wall. "What happened?"

Red Alerts optics shuttered. The other youngling spoke in a slight accented version of cybertron, making his words sound slightly funny. "I'm sorry! I hurt you-"

Red Alert stopped, his youngling CPU unable to find the words to express himself. The fire truck surprised him by laughing. "Don't be sad. Its Ok."

Red Alert perked up at that. "Really?"

"Mmhm. I'm Inferno."

"Red Alert." Red Alert said sotly. "For you."

Red Alerts energon goodie was thrust out to the fire truck, who took it gratefully. "Thank you."

Red Alert smiled back, and leaned back against the wall. "Welcome."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Prowl stared at Red Aert in a mixture of shock and amusement. "So, you knocked him out, but he forgave you?"

"Yes. And I'm still unsure why."

"But, if it was only the first week of it, the program went on for nearly three months. How did that work out?"

"Poorly. Inferno always went rushing into any fight, and at first he was horrible with fighting. He did get better though."

"Obviously much better, or he wouldn't be alive."

Red Alert nodded, and his optics traveled across the drunken party going on. Inferno giggled as he leaned against the table. Red Alert sighed, "Inferno, you are completely drunk."

Prowl could hear Jazz making a fool of himself somewhere in the background, apparently he was attempting to dance without having any of coordination needed. "Red Alert, how did you survive the program? What with your glitch I would think that you would have a smaller chance of being able to fight-"

Inferno laughed at that. "Nah-" He said, voice slurred by high-grade. "The problem was, when he glitches, he can fight better then a pack of turbo-wolves."

Red Alert flushed. "Cannot!"

"Well the way you rescued me from the group of younglings when they swarmed me was certainly interesting."

Prowl looked at the two, and then stared directly at the furious Red Alert. Red Alert looked up, and sighed, defeated at Prowls curious look. "If I don't tell you, you're going to me write a full report of it as one of the mechs inside, aren't you?"

"I already am. But, you can leave out the details of the stories you tell me tonight." Prowl leaned forward, optics glinting. Red Alert muttered something that suspiciously sounded like a curse at Prowl, before moodily taking a gulp of his energon.

"Let's see, the day Inferno was swarmed huh?"

0o0o0o0oo0o0

Inferno grinned as he saw the energon cubes being passed out. Red Alert winced. He thought he knew exactly what was going to happen once again. They'd hand out the cubes, a fight would break out, half of the younglings would get knocked out, and Inferno would get badly dented, scraped and hit somewhere in the process.

What neither were expecting, when Inferno rushed into the fight, or all of the younglings to rush Inferno, deciding to work together to take out one of the deadlier enemies. Inferno yelped as two grabbed onto his right arm, dragging him to the ground.

The instructors looked on calmly, and Red Alert with a ear-splitting howl rushed into the fight.

Horns a pure blue, Red Alert bit, fought, and clawed his way to Infernos side, before setting himself fericiously in all of his youngling strength upon the the five younglings on top of Inferno, no longer caring that the instructors were watching.

Eventually Red Alert had to be hauled off, kicking and screaming the nearly dead younglings. Red Alert glared up at the instructors, a deep growl working its way out of his vocalizer, unable to define friend from foe in this state.

Inferno rolled over with a groan, and his voice was painfully confused as he asked, "Red?"

Red Alert snarled incoherently, still attempting to struggle away from the instructors. One hand clamped down on his shoulder, and Inferno suddenly surged forward, wrapping Red Alert in a hug. "You fought for me?"

Red Alert stiffened, his horns slowly fading back into their usual red color. Infenro didn't notice, too busy hugging Red Alert.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Prowl wondered if he was hearing correctly. "Inferno stopped you with a _hug_?"

"At that time I was just a sparkling and it could work!" Red Alert said defensively.

Prowl shook his head. Red Alert sipped at his own cube or a few moemtns before saying at last, "You know, I-I did have some troubles. After that all of the other kids were afraid of me. So not only was I a glitch, which they didn't really understand, but I was also strong. Which was worse. Thankfully the next week they broke up the entire program."

Prowl nodded slowly, optics thoughtful. "That is rather interesting Red Alert."

"I'm not writing you a report Prowl." Red Alert warned, standing up. "Inferno, lets get you into your room beore you do something you regret."

Prowl say Jazz attempting to climb ontop of Sunstreaker, singing badly, and sighed. "True enough. I suppose I better rescue Jazz as well."

The two nodded and separated.

SsSsSsSsSsSs

I blame the bunny farm. I scrolled down to look at the comments, and this is what I got. You know, I'm beginning to get scared of myself. DX Oh, I hope the line thing works as well, and since school started, expect to see me slowing down... Oh, and I hope the line thing works for me. If it doesn't... sorry.


End file.
